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This NYT story on yesterday's skills commission report is a museum quality classic of the education story genre: It's got the big set up, the breathless quote from Jack Jennings that confirms the general storyline (in this case, this is a really important report! It could change everything!), the dismissive brush-offs from the teachers' unions about how wrongheaded it all is, and the sober middle-of-the-road quote at the end. Why mess with perfection, I know...But how about some, you know, analysis on why the unions don't like it (it proposes to reallocate teacher compensation*), what its prospects are (it could change nothing), what happened with the last report from the same gang, or whether it's significant that this blue-ribbon panel essential embraced the contracting model for delivering public education? NYT, you'll never move past #4 with stuff like this!

*In fact, in this case the story is unfair to the unions because it makes them look more reactionary than they actually are (so that's an accomplishment worth noting). They have legitimate reasons to be concerned about that part of the report, but surely support some of the more milquetoast stuff around adult education and pre-k education.

**Here's that quote: "I think we've tried to do what we can to improve American schools within the current context," says Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, who says the commission has sparked an important debate. "Now we need to think much more daringly."
Not sure I agree. I think we need to think more daringly, yes, but I don't think we tried everything or nearly hard enough to improve American schools within the current context. But I think that is sort of irrelevant today because the context has changed so much and consequently more of the same amounts to trying to make the current system work to do things we don't want it to do anymore anyway.

You’ll hear a lot about this New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce report in the next few days, it’s already got big media buzzing – they love a parade! It’s well worth reading and makes recommendations along multiple fronts from testing to school district structure to adult education. I don’t agree with it all (the testing regime seems a distraction from the path we're on now), though a lot hardly anyone will disagree with, but there are a few things many folks will especially school boards, school districts, and teachers’ unions. But, for my money, the most notable thing about it is its proposed financing rather than any of the recommendations themselves.

Usually these big-think reports come with a big-think price tag and a call for everyone to dig deep, value education in fiscal terms as much as we do in rhetorical ones, etc…This is the first really seminal one that I can think of that lays out the hard truth that a lot of this is going to have to be financed on resources already in the system. That’s a big signal shift and for a country that has more than doubled its education spending in a generation, it’s a sign of new seriousness about policymaking.

Some of the financing is supposed to come from increased efficiencies, and that’s a tough one. But the more concrete idea, and the one that the usual suspects will hate, is the idea of repurposing funds structurally from veteran teachers and toward newbies. Yet considering the research on teacher effectiveness, what we know about the education labor market, and how our human capital resources (salaries and benefits) are allocated in this field, fixing the misalignment is high priority. Now I’m not saying, and don’t think the commission is saying, that you can or should hose veteran teachers or create a “ten and out” system. But, there is plenty of room between those extremes and what we have now and policymakers have to go there.

The back channel chatter on this is also surfacing some resentments from folks who have worked on these various issues but feel they got short shrift in the report. Many of the ideas have been around for a while in different forms and championed by different people. The most notable instance is the contracting idea for schools, which Paul Hill has been a leader on for some time, though there are others as well on multiple issues. In some ways that is par for the course with these things, they’re compendiums and syntheses of the best ideas and thinking already out there. But, in a report that is confident in its tone and self-referencing, the authors would have done themselves a favor to make that much more clear.

I'd ask you all to vote on it and decide, but turns out you're not very good at that. If even half the people who read this blog daily would vote for it in the Bloggies, we'd be winning, since you can vote every day...ingrates.

Anyway, check out the Ed Week report, the methods are a little flimsy, but it's interesting. Big winner is the Ed Trust, I'd say. And it's well deserved.

And while you're at Ed Week, Olson and Hoff turn in a must-read round-up on where things stand in the NCLB ideas primary.

Craig Jerald and Kevin Carey wrap up their outstanding Wire-blogging. Only thing I'd add is that I also found the No Child Left Behind storyline uncharacteristically shallow for what is overall a very textured show. Coach Carter approached the issue with more nuance and while there is a sophisticated critique of No Child from the perspective the show takes, it missed it.

It sounds a little racy, so parents read it first, and the fawning review by "Diane Bolick from Phoenix, AZ" seems a little fishy...nonetheless other reviewers say it's a "page turner" and that it "haunts you - in a memorable and loves-lost sort of way."

Last month at the Dutko – Ed Week confab, the big question was, of course, so when will No Child Left Behind be reauthorized?The consensus, explicit from some, implicit from others, was that while the administration is working on reauthorization ideas, and incoming House and Senate education chairs George Miller and Edward Kennedy want to start work on the issue, the odds are long.

So like a day at the track, here’s an Eduwonk tip sheet to probable outcomes.We’ll update it as things progress.Of course, some of these scenarios are not mutually exclusive, but for the purposes of this exercise we’re treating each as independent.So here’s the post mid-term morning line:

Outcome

Odds

Why?

Reauthorization prior to the 2008 election

15-1

If the Bush Administration wants to play for legacy and return to bipartisanship, this is about the only place they can look.And, leave aside the debate over funding, there is a fair amount of agreement on the core issues.Could be that even with higher education on the agenda, elementary and secondary education turns out to be the hot issue.Still, a lot has to happen for this to come together.

Reauthorization prior to the election based on the Aspen No Child Left Behind Commission’s report, due out in early 2007

9-1

If there is a pre-election reauthorization, this is the likely scenario.The Aspen NCLB Commission isn’t just going to offer up vague principles but rather something of a blueprint.If the administration wants to show that they still can be bipartisan and Kennedy and Miller want to protect much of NCLB, a deal around the Aspen blueprint could grease the skids for passage and enactment.

No reauthorization until after 2008 election

8/5

You’ll never go broke betting on gridlock in Washington!And, the agenda is awfully crowded on education, and in general. Coupled with a short legislative calendar and the fast approaching political season, hard to see all the complicated issues that have to be tackled for a comprehensive reauthorization being addressed before we choose a new president.

Competitiveness out- competes equity

4-1

Congress does like to do things on education and competitiveness concerns pave the way for a bipartisan education bill that avoids all the hard decisions on No Child and creates some feel-good initiatives focused on STEM careers.This could be the value play going into 2008.

National Education Association reasserts itself and rewrites the law to its liking

35-1

Sorry dues payers!As Ed Week bluntly titled a post-mortem on the 2001 NCLB enactment: “Unions' Positions Unheeded On ESEA.” A Democratic majority doesn’t hurt them but doesn’t help them all that much either because there are bad feelings on both sides of the aisles about how the unions, especially the NEA, have approached the law since its passage.George Miller shows that liberalism doesn’t have to equal water carrying for them. But, if things start to look scary for Dems in 2008, the unions stock goes up.Still, a long shot.

Conservatives rollback the federal role in elementary and secondary education

60-1

The Republican Study Group would love to see it happen and No Child has created a new group of states' rights liberals. But even though libertarian oriented Republicans are asserting themselves on the issue it's hard to see them getting much traction.